In 2005, we worked ourselves into a lather over the new Commonwealth Law Courts. It was, we reckoned, "Adelaide's ugliest building".

"Revert (sic) your eyes!" one doomsayer cautioned on an online forum at the time.

We stood our ground over the Victoria Park Grand Stand, sneezed all over the new RAH and failed to give way to the new trams, which we called a colossal waste of money.

"Woopee!! A tram from nowhere to nowhere that cost $100m" one correspondent scoffed.

Now, the government is building a bridge and, predictably, some of us just can't get over it.

But if history is any guide, we will.

We are the Statler and Waldorf (the doddery old theatre critics from the Muppet Show) of Australian cities.

Statler: That was the worst thing I've ever heard!

Waldorf: It was terrible!

S: Horrendous!

W: Well it wasn't that bad.

S: Oh, yeah?

W: Well, there were parts of it I liked!

S: Well, I liked a lot of it.

W: Yeah, it was GOOD actually.

S: It was great!

W: It was wonderful!

S: Yeah, bravo!

W: More!

S: More!

Brand guru Ken Cato touched on the public's fickle tendencies by way of defending his controversial new SA logo, unveiled earlier this month.

"A number of people are just going to dump on this, say 'What's that about'," he told adelaidenow.

"But five years from now they will be the ones that remember how they were the only one that thought it was really good".

Time will tell.

The bigger point, I think, is that, on so many new ideas, our default position is to activate the NO siren and set our bleat-o-meters to 11.

South Australians are right to hold the government to account on major projects, especially when such vast amounts of public money are at stake.

But maybe, just maybe, now and then we should give ourselves permission to accept that a new hospital, or bridge across the river, or public transport service might actually be good for our city and not a sign of End Times.